Monkey patrols, snake lookouts ease fears at Commonwealth Games

It looks like New Delhi has finally got the kinks out of its much-maligned Commonwealth Games.

Since the Games hired a goon squad of langur monkeys to maintain order over bands of smaller monkeys, there have been no reports of simian rampages on tourists or athletes. (Langurs, the jackbooted stormtroopers of the monkey world, are very effective in keeping lesser primates from taking up residence in their territory.)

Meanwhile snake charmers remain posted throughout the Games venues should any more deadly cobras appear from plumbing fixtures. One was found slithering down a drain last week at the tennis center. Games officials downplayed the incident. What, you never heard of snaking a drain?!

No pedestrian bridges have collapsed this week.

Look what we found in the drain.

Those fears about a mosquito-borne dengue fever epidemic in the athletes quarters? Overblown, say officials. No infections have been reported. They add that most doctors and paramedics assigned to the Games are accredited.

But there is one ugly development that seems destined to cast a pall on the Commonwealth Games. What’s worse is that Games officials are complicit.

“There is a lot of demand for the vuvuzela,” Suresh Kumar, chairman of the Indian company in charge of merchandising for the event, told the U.K.’s Telegraph. “We have sold more than 12,000 pieces.”

A total of 50,000 vuvuzelas were imported from China for sale. Indian Sports Minister M.S. Gill even blew one at the athlete’s village Wednesday.

The organizing committee is hoping the low price of each horn (about $5) “will enable everybody to own a piece of the Games.”